Market Infrastructure Resiliency Service (MIRS)

A robust, efficient and low cost RTGS third-site recovery solution

Due to the systemic importance of real-time gross settlement systems (RTGS), central banks must ensure they are resilient enough to withstand a variety of threats to their security and integrity. These include natural disasters, data corruption, loss of essential services, unavailability of staff and, of course, cyber-crime.

The importance of resilience is clearly reflected in recently published papers by CPSS-IOSCO (“Principles for financial market infrastructures (PFMI), December 2015” and “Guidance on cyber resilience for financial market infrastructures, June 2016”) that describe the importance of having plans to guarantee continuity of service.

In order to help comply with CPSS-IOSCO guidelines, SWIFT has worked with some key RTGS operators to develop the Market Infrastructure Resilience Service (MIRS).

MIRS is a fully diversified RTGS application, hosted and operated by SWIFT, that provides operational and business continuity services to RTGS operators in case of failure of primary and secondary sites. MIRS runs as a shared platform that offers RTGS systems all the functionalities needed to process and settle payments.